US President Donald Trump said he would seek to counter China’s economic advantage from coal-based electricity by authorising his administration to ramp up energy production from fossil fuels.
“I am authorising my Administration to immediately begin producing Energy with BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL,” Trump wrote in a social media post.
It’s not clear what Trump was referring to or how his social media decree would impact actual US policy. Earlier in his term, Trump already signed an executive order declaring a national energy emergency and directed the Environmental Protection Agency to boost fossil fuel production and distribution.
Earlier this month, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that the administration was working on a “market-based” plan to stem the closing of US coal-fired power plants. Coal accounts for about 15% of power generation in the US today, down from more than half in 2000, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
An additional 120 coal-fired power plants are scheduled to shutdown in the next five years in part because of environmental regulations that have made them uneconomic, according to the America’s Power trade group representing utilities and miners such as Peabody Energy Corp. and Core Natural Resources Inc.
Earlier this month, the EPA said it planned to revisit regulations imposed during President Joe Biden’s administration limiting mercury and greenhouse gas pollution, which could help keep some coal plants operational. Supporters of the limits have said that soot is particularly dangerous because particles of the pollutant can penetrate the bloodstream.
Trump officials have said that keeping coal plants online could help lower energy costs and supply energy to power-thirsty data centres working on artificial intelligence projects.
(Bloomberg Philanthropies’ work with the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign has helped retire over 70% of the nation’s coal plants since 2011.)
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